Changeling the Prototype
by CDSoundtrack
Summary: For mysterious reasons, the black ops company GenTek buys out STAR Labs, which makes Alex Mercer choose none other than Jump City as the sight of the second infection, and he has a peculiar interest in Beast Boy...
1. Infection

[Changeling the Prototype]

Chapter 1: Infection

"Breaking news!" A male anchor on Jump City News appeared, not seeing the surprised looks on the faces of the Teen Titans watching in the comfort of their OPS room. It was definitely strange, especially since they hadn't received a crime alert, and Starfire hadn't blown up anything recently. "STAR Labs was recently bought out by Gentek, an organization that is shrouded in mystery. We will say more as the story progresses, but for now, things should remain the same."

"Cy? You okay dude?" Beast Boy, a short, green, elf-like shapeshifter asked his cybernetic friend Cyborg. He knew that the technical expert was saved by STAR labs, and the fact that the place was bought out may affect him.

"Its cool B, though I would like to know more about this Gentek…" The tech Titan activated the console's "Computer mode", which he used to search for Gentek. He didn't find much, though he did discover that they were part of what happened in Manhattan a few months ago. No one knew for certain what happened, all they were aware of was that Gentek had something to do with it.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Robin, the leader of the Titans who often dressed as a traffic light, commented, just as the alarm went off. "Titans, Go!" With that, the heroic teenagers ran off in order to figure out what had happened and how to stop it.

The alarm had just gone off, so there shouldn't have been nearly as much damage as there was. It was as if a bomb had gone in the middle of downtown Jump City. There were fires everywhere, including on buildings, which looked gouged out by what seemed to be large claws. There were huge craters in the ground, which looked like Starfire had punched the earth multiple times.

"Dude… What happened?" The changeling wondered aloud, beginning to look around for survivors. What he didn't see was a mass of black and red tendrils shift into a tall young adult with gleaming red eyes hidden behind a hood.

The Titans had all spread out in the area to make sure that they could help as many people as possible, so no one noticed when Beast Boy was grabbed and pulled away from them by an unknown force. After a short struggle, the shapeshifter faced his captor. The man was wearing slacks and a white button up shirt beneath a black hooded jacket, his red eyes gleaming in curiosity, making Beast Boy shiver a bit under the gaze, feeling like a lab experiment under a knife.

"I didn't know humans came in green… a disease of some sort?" He asked, more to himself than the changeling.

"Who're you? Are you behind this chaos?" Beast Boy asked, his stance tensing when he heard this stranger refer to Sakutia, not that the new person seemed aware of the exact details.

"Chaos?" The man laughed crazily. "This isn't chaos, this is the next beautiful step in human evolution! Superior strength and adaptability! We are the new norm! Those who resist will be… assimilated." What he said was immensely disconcerting, especially considering the way he said it, emotion and pride in himself notwithstanding, was almost exactly what the Androids had said in Galaxy Quest. Fearing that everything he knew was in danger, his body moved on its own, lunging at the man with a clenched fist. To his surprise, his punch was caught easily, and he could feel the sheer strength in this man's body. He could crush the lith changeling with ease if he weren't toying with him. "Tut tut green one. We haven't even been introduced. My name is Alex Mercer. And yours?"

"I'm Beast Boy!" With that, he shifted into a sasquatch and used the superior strength and leverage to launch Mercer into a building. The young adult's blood-red eyes were wide as he jumped out of the crater he had formed in the wall.

"Interesting. A shapeshifter, but not like me… No, definitely not Blacklight…" Now he smirked in an arrogant manner. "You're an interesting specimen Beast Boy. Would you join me? With your powers together and mine, we could rule the world as gods." Several of the creatures in Beast Boy liked the sound of ruling as an all-powerful alpha, but they all knew Mercer couldn't be trusted.

"Not gonna happen. Now, once the rest of my team gets here, we're gonna take you down and lock you up for what you've done!" Beast Boy growled, and he could feel himself becoming more feral, his fangs elongating and his eyes flashing between green and blank white to counter Mercer's cold red gaze. He had to be careful, or the Beast may take control, something about this guy made him either want to run away for miles, or fight to the death. And right now, he was leaning towards the latter.

"Sorry, but I have no intention of being put behind bars." Suddenly, red and black tendrils enveloped Mercer's arms, leaving a set of wicked claws and a strange black substance in replacement of the limbs.

"What… what are you?" Beast Boy had never seen anything like it. It was like his power, but it was obviously different somehow.

"I am a God, and I will not allow you to stand in my way!" With that, Alex lunged at Beast Boy, who shifted into an Ankylosaurus and swung his wrecking-ball like tail at the pouncing 'God'. Unfortunately, Alex seemed to shift again, now wearing what seemed to be a suit of black armor. The tail knocked him back still, but not nearly as far. Alex shifted so that only his claws were still transformed, spitting out a bloody tooth.

"I hate using Armor… slows me down." One claw shifted back to a hand, but the other turned into a zweihander sword, making Beast Boy's green eyes widen. "But this… I'll dice you into pieces!" Alex charged, swinging the blade wildly.

It took all of Beast Boy's strength, but he leaped out of the way. He needed to put an end to this, or at least survive until the other Titan's arrived. But he had underestimated the speed of Mercer, who now grabbed him by the throat, forming a small needle out of the black and red tendrils.

"You have courage. This will be an interesting experiment…" Alex then jabbed the needle into the changeling's neck, and everything went dark.

When emerald eyes opened once more, they were met with a pounding headache and fluorescent lights.

"Ugh, dude… What _happened_?" He tried moving his hand, and noticed it felt weird trying to move. Like he was detached from his body in some way, but also connected… deeper. Closing his eyes once more, he tried reaching out with his senses to find just where he was and if there was any sign of the other Titans, but he was met by something completely different.

He felt a _pulse_ of some kind emit from him, showing him a vague view of what was around him before it bounced back, showing that there were people above him and around all sides. He tried lifting an arm once more, but this time he realized he was restrained.

"Let me go!" Despite his body feeling weird, he tried to shift so he could forcefully escape the… wherever he was, but he found even that beyond him as a rotting smell forced its way into his nostrils. As he gagged he felt himself rising up, his body now perpendicular to the ground as it hung by the arms off of a medicinal table, and as he saw the humans (and he used the term _very_ loosely) shambling towards him, he almost vomited.

Bloated, bloody, pus ridden, with sickening growths and rot, they stumbled towards him as the restraints released. He fell to the floor with a thud and he tried to get up and ignore the pain in his head, managing it just in time to smack a groping hand away as the walking corpses closed in.

He tried to shift, to contort his body into something that could help him fight off these people who stunk of death and disease, but still found it beyond him, so he did something he hadn't done since his last encounter with Slade: he threw a punch. To his shock the creature (Gross! It _squished_ when he hit it!) was sent flying, crashing into a strong steel wall with a pitiful and disturbing squelch, leaving a red stain and dent.

"Dude… I've never been this strong…" He avoided another blow, kicking the offending thing in the chest. To his disgust yet again, there was a loud crunch and his foot caved in the being's chest cavity, but he couldn't worry about that now.

He would puke his guts out later.

"Shit, the specimen is too powerful! Purge the chamber!" A voice cursed from above, attracting said specimen's attention to a barrier dividing him and these creatures from a group of scientists.

But he would worry about that later, since pillars of flame began to erupt from the floor and walls as more and more shambling corpses seeked to end him, now on fire. He felt himself burning, but it was happening slower than he had expected, as if his body was fighting against it.

"Beast Boy! You need to consume ze infected to survive!" A German or French accented doctor shouted behind the barrier, making Beast Boy look at him in confusion. "Grab zem and follow your instincts!"

He decided to trust the heavily accented doctor, since he didn't have any other options if he didn't want to become deep fried. He grabbed the nearest 'infected' and felt his body trying to reach out and envelop it. Closing his eyes, he let it.

Opening them again, he saw dark green and black tendrils with points on the end plunge into the Infected's chest, draining it of life and biomass and restoring his rapidly deteriorating health, healing the burns as they formed and even ridding him of his headache. He fell to the floor along with the new corpse once the tendrils had receded into his body, feeling incredibly confused and also disgusted with how he had torn the life from that being, even if it had tried to kill him.

Climbing back to his feet, he furiously punched and kicked at every Infected left in the burning room, the smell of burning and rotting flesh currently overloading every other sense as he fought. Grabbing the final one, he reared back and threw it as hard as he could at the barrier, creating a hole that he might be able to fit through if he could get up there. Deciding it was now or never, he leaped, clearing the yards of air as if they were nothing as he curled up and rolled once he hit the ground, away from the burning Infected.

"Sonuvabitch! Get BlackWatch in here!" One of the scientists shouted, which led to several men in black uniforms with guns and gas masks to charge in, aiming their weapons at the elflike human. If he was even that anymore.

"Open fire!" The commander shouted, and automatic weapons fire began sending bullets into him. Unlike the fire though, these felt barely like pin pricks. He was growing stronger…

Feeling his body trying to move on it's own again, he let it, raising a foot up and slamming it against the ground. To his shock an earthquake began with him as the epicenter, knocking over the scientists and BlackWatch soldiers.

With his foes currently incapacitated, Beast Boy took the opportunity to sprint out the door, amazed at how fast he was moving. He was no Kid Flash or Mas Y Menos, but he was a close third when it came to sheer speed. Taking a running leap, he vaulted over the barbed wire fence that surrounded the facility he had been in, landing on top of a small building. Hopping from building to building until he found higher ground took a while, but he gaped when he saw everything that was going on.

Fires. Red and black tendrils. Buildings with strange pink growths. Shambling hordes flooding streets. Smoke clogged the skies, which were tinted the same pink as the growths all around. Across the bay, Titans Tower was alight with the glow of Cyborg's sonic blasts, Starfire's starbolts, Raven's magic, and Robin's explosive birdarangs.

Jump City was under siege.


	2. Things Change

Chapter 2: Things Change

Beast Boy knew that no matter how chaotic things were in the city, he would need to save the Titans before he could do anything about it. But without shifting, he had no idea how he would get across the bay, or if he could even get to the beaches with all the Infected and BlackWatch around. Even now firefights were breaking out, members of the black ops group mercilessly pushing back the shambling hordes. What had Mercer called it? BlackLight?

Whatever it was, the huge amount of people on either side of the 'war' would make it difficult, especially since they were both his enemies.

The Infected were a violent horde, their only thoughts of destruction, and whatever Mercer had done to him had not made him invisible to their aggression.

BlackWatch, on the other hand, had taken him prisoner and tried testing his strength, only to attempt to kill him when they found him too powerful to contain.

"Seems like you finally realized that you're alone here." A cold voice pointed out, soon revealing it's owner as Alex Mercer, the hooded being who had infected Beast Boy leaping into sight from the shadows.

"What have you done to me!?" He asked, readying himself for a fight. Without his shapeshifting he was at Mercer's mercy, but whatever had been done to him seemed to be adapting, and his super speed and strength were the results.

"I've made you a God. What does BlackWatch call me these days? Zeus? I think Chimera will suit you nicely." Instead of answering his question, the response led to even more questions from Beast Boy.

"A God? Dude, I don't know what you're on, but it must be some strong stuff." This made Alex let out a chuckle, a dark, cold noise that sent shivers down Beast Boy's spine.

"What I'm on? Chimera, the _power_ flowing through my veins, your veins, is all the drug you'll ever need. I'm sure by now you've Consumed someone?" Beast Boy shuddered, remembering the green and black tendrils that had erupted from his body and absorbed the nutrients from the Infected back at BlackWatch's laboratory.

"Consume… You made me a monster." He felt sick and strange all at once, no longer feeling comfortable in the enhanced body. Part of its strength had come from killing another.

"Think more along the lines of an apex predator. The only thing that can kill you is another of us… Like me." He shifted his arms into claws and pointed at Beast Boy's chest, where his heart was. "You were just born… You're still new and weak. It would be easy."

"I'll stop you! I'll get help from the Titans and take you down!" He replied defiantly, Mercer laughing coldly before, to the changeling's shock, he shapeshifted to look like a BlackWatch soldier, the wrist mounted blade on his left hand at his throat.

"When you Consume someone, you get their memories, and the ability to take their form. If you somehow managed to imprison me, and that is quite a large if, all I have to do is Consume a guard and I'll be out. Or maybe I should Consume _you_ , head to the Tower. Make them think I'm you before killing them all and absorbing their power." He suggested, and Beast Boy could picture a cocky smirk on the face behind the mask.

"T-they'd know you aren't me." He tried to stand tall, but he was beginning to falter.

"You don't get it. I can become you. Your memories, your thoughts, your body, and your abilities. It wouldn't even be like swatting a fly to me." He shapeshifted back to his normal form, red and black tendrils beginning to reach out towards the changeling. "Easy as pie!" As if nothing had happened, the tendrils receded into Mercer and he began walking away.

"Where are you going?" Beast Boy asked, confused as to what was going on.

"BlackWatch is on its way here, what with us both being in the same place. If you really want to get help from your friends, try taking a chopper. Even I can't get that far myself." The changeling was surprised by the shift in Mercer's tone and personality, and he didn't trust it.

"I can't fly a helicopter." He responds, as if that was the only issue with the plan.

"Just Consume a helicopter pilot. You'll get all his military training and strength, and the ability to pilot a helicopter straight to your odd tower. I'll keep in touch." With that Mercer started sprinting towards the edge of the building, leaping an incredible distance and height.

Before Beast Boy could respond in any way to what had happened he heard a loud noise approaching, and a helicopter began hovering in place in front of him, a bright spotlight shining in his face.

"Attention escaped test subject!" The pilot shouted over loudspeaker, "Get on your knees with your hands above your head! We will use force if necessary!"

"Well that's convenient…" He muttered before deciding to do something insanely stupid: He ran towards the chopper and jumped towards it, grabbing onto the rail and heaving himself up to the door.

"Shit! Subject is on our chopper, trying to shake him now!" They rose high above Jump City as Beast Boy tried to open the cockpit's outer door, finally forcing it open with enough force to break the bulletproof glass.

"Dude, I need you to take me to Titans Tower across the bay. Please." He asked the startled pilot, who seemed terrified.

"Y-you scum! I don't take orders from you!" He pulled out what looked to be an assault rifle and opened fire on the changeling, who shuddered as they bounced off him.

"Dude, you don't understand. I have no choice. Either you get me there, or I'll be forced to kill you." He felt sick even suggesting it, but he _had_ to get to the Tower, even if that meant Consuming this pilot…

"... Can you guarantee you won't kill me if I get you there?" The pilot asked nervously, but he finally stopped ascending, and dropped the assault rifle.

"I don't want to kill anyone unless I have absolutely no choice." That wasn't a lie, but he knew he had to stop Mercer, and that he was too dangerous to live.

He would have to kill Alex Mercer.

"Fine…" The pilot set course across the bay, tensing as Beast Boy walked around him and sat in the co pilots seat. "Damn, the Infected sure want to get rid of your freaky friends." Indeed, the Tower's defense system was activated, firing away at the Infected horde that was trying to breach his home.

"You can head back to Jump. Thank you for not reporting me to BlackWatch." He jumped out of the chopper, landing on the roof of Titan's Tower with a roll and surprisingly no damage at all to his body.

" **Infected presence detected."** The defenses chimed as a sentry turret popped out of the tower's roof, taking aim at him.

"This… May have been a bad idea." He realized as the sonic cannon started firing. As he dodged out of the way he started heading towards the weapon, making sure not to get hit.

Bullets may not work on him anymore, but he had no idea about sonic blasts.

As suddenly as it began the sentry turret retreated back into the tower, and a chill went down Beast Boy's spine. The door to the inside of the tower opened up, and Cyborg came out with his cannon primed. He lit up when he saw the changeling though.

"B? Thank goodness you're alright string bean, we've all been worried." He lowered the cannon, looking out at Jump City with scorn. "Some kinda zombie disease is going on out there, we thought you were dead." He tapped at his arm and grew a concerned look. "Something triggered the scanners those BlackWatch goonies helped me hook up to our defenses. Have you seen any of those Infected things up here?" Beast Boy gulped, it was time for the moment of truth.

"Actually Cy, I'm what set the scanner off. Alex, the dude who started this outbreak, he did something to me. I'm not like them, but I'm not the same as I was…"

"That's crazy talk. There's no way you…" He tapped the scanner again and the human half of his face looked conflicted. "It is you. We should bring you inside to the medbay, have a look at you."

"That'd be great, but I need to talk to you and the rest of the team too. I have an idea on how to stop this mess."

Cyborg didn't say anything at that, but instead led BB to the medbay, where he lay across a surgical table. Once he was laying down the tech based Titan set the nearby machines to run every test possible, before tapping on his communicator to summon the other members of the team.

They walked in as one, and rushed to the green teen's side when they saw him, all talking at once.

"What's happening in Jump City?"

"How are you feeling friend Beast Boy? You look no worse for the wearing."

"...You're okay?"

After a few minutes they calmed down, and Beast Boy explained how Mercer had cornered him and knocked him out. How he woke up a while later in a lab with a dozen Infected. How he had been unable to shift and somehow fought them off. How he had escaped and talked again with Mercer, soon ending up here. Naturally, Robin narrowed his eyes.

"So we're dealing with a villain who is willing to use bioweapons. This is already worse than almost anything we've dealt with before, especially since we can't get involved."

"Can't get involved? Dude, what'd I miss?" Beast Boy asked, that chill from before coming back with a vengeance. Something wasn't right…

"BlackWatch and the military came in to deal with it. They helped us place scanners that would detect the Infected and sync to our defenses, but for now this is outside our jurisdiction. Otherwise we'd already be working to put this Mercer behind bars." Robin explained, gritting his teeth and clenching his green gloved hand, not happy with the situation to say the least.

"About that Rob…" Before BB could continue, Cy piped up to point out something the changeling had abstained from his retelling.

"You didn't mention anything on why all our scanners tell us you're Infected." Suddenly the silence was deafening, and Beast Boy looked down.

"When he knocked me out Mercer did something to me. I can't shift anymore, but I'm faster and stronger than ever. I consumed one of the Infected and it made me even stronger. BlackWatch tried to put me down with assault rifle fire, but it just bounces off me now. I'm… I don't know what I am…" He felt sick recalling the tendrils that had erupted from him to rip biomass from the Infected. It was even worse than the cravings for meat, because he might actually have to do this to survive.

"Consumed? You _ate_ one of those things?" Raven asked with clear disgust in her amethyst eyes. Beast Boy couldn't blame her.

"I didn't eat them. Watch." He took a deep breath and tried to summon forth the disturbing tendrils. It worked, and pointed biomass colored a deep green and black stuck out from the inside of his wrists. This was met by gasps from the Titans, and Starfire was looking green. "These things… They absorbed the Infected."

"We need to get you to BlackWatch. They can help." BB winced when Robin suggested that, he had been afraid that the Boy Wonder would decide BlackWatch was the best option. Vigilantes or not, he always trusted the law (Except for when he was Red X and Slade's apprentice, but apparently those were exceptions).

"BlackWatch are the dudes that locked me up and tried to fry me when they realized how strong I was becoming. They won't stop until I'm dead, I barely talked that pilot into taking me here and for some reason he wanted me as a prisoner. We can't trust them."

"They had you locked up for a reason Beast Boy. You're infected, but seemingly in control of yourself. You need to turn yourself back in." Robin replied, and the changeling was getting irritated. BlackWatch may be working with the military, but they sure as hell weren't it!

"No, we need to get out there and make sure Mercer can't hurt anyone ever again!" He retaliated, standing up and glaring at Robin.

"That sounds awful like you want to kill him."

"Because we have to! He's more dangerous than anyone else we've faced, too dangerous to live. We need to put him down before countless lives are lost!" The other four's faces turned dark. Why couldn't they listen to reason?!

"Beast Boy, calm down. We'll call BlackWatch and have them pick you up. You're obviously unstable, and you need to stand down." Robin tried to placate him as the girls and Cyborg looked on with stony faces.

"Or what? You'll threaten to have me arrested because again? I just want to save Jump City. I don't trust BlackWatch, and we need to make sure Mercer isn't a threat. If that means I have to kill him, then so be it." He turned to the others, to see if they were in agreement with Robin.

Cyborg looked pissed that he would even suggest killing someone, not to mention the distrust because of the strange strain of BlackLight.

Starfire looked at him with a cold expression, closer to how she looked at villains than she had ever looked at any of them.

Raven seemed to be conflicted. As one of the Titans that inherently had a darker side (himself being the other one), she seemed to understand why he said what he did. And yet she seemed willing to follow Robin's cue, her eyes shining in silent apology.

"I guess it's time for me to go. You guys can stay here if you want, but I'm gonna save Jump City, from BlackWatch and Mercer!" He stomped as hard as he could against the ground, creating a shockwave identical to what happened at BlackWatch's lab and knocking the Titans off their feet.

He took off running for the roof, forcing himself not to shed tears as he sprinted past the sonic turret, forcing himself to leap as far as he could towards Jump City. Surprisingly, he cleared the bay, landing with a huge thud on the beach and leaving a large impact crater.

He was on his own, things really do change…


	3. Bonds Broken

Chapter 3: Bonds Broken

Beast Boy couldn't believe what had happened. The Titans were way too trusting of BlackWatch, and too set in the fact they shouldn't kill people, no matter that they were a biological terrorist and possibly one of the most dangerous beings in the world.

He would have to hunt down and kill Alex Mercer all on his own.

That was stupid however. He needed to find a way to get information from BlackWatch. He needed someone he could trust. But who?

Terra. A thought crept into his head, the blonde haired geomancer that had once been a Titan, only to feign amnesia in order to live a normal life. If he could find her, and if she was still in Jump, he may have his source. She might refuse to help, but it was definitely worth a try.

He reached out with his senses again, but this time a strange ping came out, like the sonar he would use in a bat or dolphin form. Except unlike in those forms, the return pulse didn't bounce off any walls or obstructions, since he could see them. The return pulse came from the northern part of town. For some reason, he had a feeling that Terra was that way.

Leaping onto a rooftop he began sprinting, using this strange pulse occasionally to make sure he was on target. He kept this up for a few moments, making sure to avoid patrols and helicopters from both the military and BlackWatch since he wasn't sure exactly how intertwined they were, and he soon came to a street without any sign of BlackLight.

Seems like they had contained the outbreak to the South and West parts of Jump. Whoop dee freaking doo.

Looking down, he saw the definitive long blonde hair of Terra, and jumped from his roof, landing without a scratch.

"Terra?" He asked, noting that she seemed less irritated with him than last time he had seen her.

"Tara Beast Boy. I'm not that girl." Anymore silently went between them, the changeling nodding in recognition.

"Tara then. I need some help, and you're the only one I can trust." A flash of irritation went through her large blue eyes.

"What about the Titans?" She asked, Beast Boy recognizing the hostility in her tone wasn't directed towards him, but towards the protectors of the city in general.

"As it turns out, they're willing to lay down and let BlackWatch take over. They want to turn me over to them because I want to take down Alex Mercer, the guy behind this." Terra's eyes widened in recognition at the name. "You know him?"

"Not personally, but I had a pen pal from New York, school project, who mentioned the Mercer's. Alex and his younger sister Dana. I think her name was Karen Parker…"

"That's a strange connection. I need access to BlackWatch, or the military, or Gentek. They're all on one side of this war, with Alex and his Infected on the other. Can you help me?"

"She worked for Gentek, and gave me a part time internship. I don't have access to practically anything, sorry." She apologized, and to his surprise she was actually apologetic that she was unable to help.

"I… Have a way in. I didn't want to use it, but Mercer gave me an ability that could work." He felt sick. He didn't want to Consume anyone, but it seemed that there wasn't any other option. He promised himself that despite this, he would only Consume BlackWatch and Infected, and he would avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. "Just point me in the direction of the nearest BlackWatch Base, and I can take it from there."

"It's just south of here, you can't miss it. Beast Boy… What are you planning on doing?" The schoolgirl asks, looking at him cautiously. He sighed and looked down.

"Something that means I can never return to the Titans." He handed her his communicator, a gesture that gave him a flashback to the last time he had seen her over a year ago, but this time she took it without comment. "Try and get out of town Tara, things are going to get much worse before they get better." With that he ran from the confused blonde, charging up his biomass in his legs, which allowed him to leap onto a building and keep going without any pause.

He didn't understand what had been done to him, but he did know that he could apparently focus his strength to different parts of his body to increase his speed and jump length/height, and theoretically his strength as well.

He shook this off as he approached the BlackWatch base, emerald eyes roaming over the military base and all the BlackWatch soldiers walking around. He had to find an important one and Consume them, learn what he knew. Unlike the other soldiers, he located one that wore white and had a gas mask on. Even better, BlackWatch soldiers like the one Mercer had Consumed were saluting him. And one more stroke of luck, he seemed to be leaving the base.

Beast Boy trailed him over rooftops for a while, until every other BlackWatch was out of sight of the… Commander? He jumped down behind the black ops soldier, ducking into a shop when he looked around trying to find the source of the noise.

The soldier turned back to his patrol, and Beast Boy began following him, careful to keep hidden as much as possible until the BlackWatch member came to a point where the sidewalk opened up to an alley. Deciding on an opportunity, he sprinted up to the Commander, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him into the alley, behind a building so they couldn't be seen.

"Erk… You bastard, you're just putting me at the perfect spot to kick you in the dick!" The crass officer growled threateningly at the changeling, who winced.

"Nothing personal dude… I'm sorry." A tendril erupted from the inside of his wrist, plunging into the member of BlackWatch. Several more tendrils came from him, and the agent vanished into Beast Boy. Suddenly a piercing headache made him clutch his head, flashes of a life he hadn't lived flying over his eyes.

"Hey Commander, you hear about the new test we're trying?" Sergeant Harold, a tall man who looked like he had been to jail since birth, passed him a file with a horrifying creature with massive claws on it.

"Holy shit, what the fuck is that thing?"

"The nerds call it a Berserker, and we're releasing three of them into Jump City's South park to see just how deadly they can be."

"...Sounds fucking awesome. Send me the message when it's ready, I want to see that."

The memory flashed away, and he shook off the shudders. He was Commander Walter, bloodthirsty member of BlackWatch with at least 18 lifetime sentences in prison.

No, he was Beast Boy, a shapeshifter out to stop BlackWatch and Alex Mercer. He clenched his fist and looked down, seeing the green and black biomass flowing over him, replacing his skin with the uniform Walter had been wearing. Everything was perfectly mimicked, from his strong stature that rang of ex military, to his slightly accelerated heart rate. Exactly on cue, a cell phone in one of the pockets rang.

"Hello? I mean… Hello?" He asked as he answered it, adjusting his voice to Walter's gravelly tone with a cough.

"Hammer, this is Dagger. We are about to begin Operation Bloody Claw. Waiting on you until we fuck shit up for the civvies." Sergeant Harold responded,

"Dagger, Hammer is on the way, don't let shit hit the fan without me." He replied as Harold hung up, before he began sprinting towards the park. He had to stop this before civilians were killed, or at least do his damn best. He realized he still had the assault rifle Walter had wielded, and he couldn't help but grin when he realized he had perfect knowledge of how to use the fully automatic weapon. That would definitely come in handy taking out the BlackWatch mooks that were supervising Bloody Claw.

He slowed to a pace that was fast but human as he began encountering black ops personnel and Gentek scientists, people in blue Hazmat suits and oxygen tanks. Soon he came across Harold, and three massive containers that rattled and roared.

"There you are Commander, I was worried you wouldn't make it." He said in a rough tone, as if he was a smoker.

"And miss this beautiful chaos? Fat chance." Beast Boy used Walter's voice again, tapping into the strange sadism that had come with the memories and body. Thankfully after years of keeping the Beast contained this was child's play, but he was worried about what may happen if he Consumed too many people. Their collective voices may be even worse than the Beast.

"... Open her up!" Harold slammed a fist against the side of one of the containers, and the gate sealed with the BlackWatch people on the other side.

"Operation Bloody Claw is a go!" A voice came over the radios, and the containers opened, allowing the Berserkers to walk out on all four clawed legs.

They were pink humanoid creatures that were semi bipedal like a reptilian gorilla, with wicked claws and faces that were twisted so much they were sickening to look at. And they were running at civilians!

He silently slipped away to remove his disguise without revealing that he was Walter, he shapeshifted to his elven form including the jumpsuit he wore as a Titan (Not noticing that instead of purple it was now black with a strange symbol that looked like four glowing deep green claw marks across his back), and he leaped over the fence, karate kicking one of the Berserkers straight in the face.

"Shit! Test subject is screwing with Operation Bloody Claw! He kicked one in the face! Permission to engage?" Harold asked, forgetting about Walter for whatever reason and aiming his assault rifle through the fence.

"Negative! Either the subject takes out Bloody Claw and we learn more about him, or the Berserkers wipe that shit stain off the face of the Earth!" Beast Boy could hear the radio crackle in response as he ducked below a claw strike, focusing his biomass to fire off a huge punch that impacted one of the Infected creatures right where its solar plexus would be, sending it into the air as he leaped up right behind it, allowing the other two to claw at each other as he raised his hands above the launched Berserker's head, slamming them down into the creature's skull with so much force it cracked.

He landed on his feet, finding that the first Berserker was bleeding out and barely moving, while the other two were struggling to avoid meeting and clawing at each other once again. Seeing his opportunity, he grabbed at the first creature, forcing tendrils to erupt and absorb as much of this thing's biomass as he could. The Berserker fell to the ground dead, and BB collapsed to his knees as his body began adapting to what it could take from this thing's DNA.

He let out a bestial roar and thrust out his hands, biomass focusing into them as black ooze replaced his arms, massive silver claws replacing all his fingers. They were incredibly similar to the one's Mercer attacked him with earlier, but they seemed different somehow…

He lunged at one of the startled Berserkers that was left standing, the claws gouging out the strange scaly skin across the creature's chest as his left set of claws raised to deflect a blow from the other Infected. To his surprise, the defense caused the creature's claw to fall off and it to roar in anguish.

As he grabbed at the broad chest of the reptilian BlackLight with his claws, tearing it to pieces, he realized why his claws were different: They were double edged. He absorbed the Berserker, and felt himself grow even stronger. His claws were sharper, his senses better, and he could feel every muscle growing in strength and ability. The very same happened with the final Berserker, whose head he cut off.

He was growing stronger every time he Consumed someone or something, and he could already feel the urge to start absorbing everything in sight, until he could take on Mercer with one hand tied behind his back.

But he shook this off. That was Commander Walter the sociopath and Alex Mercer the biological terrorist talking, not Beast Boy the hero. Or did he count as an anti-hero since he's killed someone, no matter how evil that person was?

"Get some APCs and tanks over here! We need to put down this fucker while we have the chance!" Harold shouted, and BB couldn't help but grin. The idiots thought he was tired after taking on these Berserkers, but he felt better than ever!

"Bring it BlackWatch!" He shouted, tearing the fence to shreds before shifting his hands back to normal and slamming a haymaker into one of the poor mooks, using his reflexes to duck down and avoid a rocket launched at him as he saw the vehicles coming at him. There were over a dozen of them, and he knew there was no way he could fight them all off, and he wouldn't consume so many BlackWatch operatives at once, that could send him over the edge no matter how prepared he was. "Or… Maybe not."

He took off running at an even greater speed, leaping over a building and shifting into Walter once more, smirking behind the gas mask.

He wasn't a Titan any longer, nor a hero, or even human if he had qualified as such before. He had broken these bonds, and he was certain they would never be repaired. And he was okay with that, as long as Mercer fell and BlackLight was gone.

As long as Jump City is safe, he could live with that.


	4. The Right Thing

Chapter 4: The Right Thing?

Beast Boy looked out over Jump City from atop one of the skyscrapers near Midtown, in turmoil. He had killed someone.

Sure, the Doom Patrol wasn't against killing someone if it came to that, and Mento had drilled that into his head, but it didn't make the first time any easier.

" _Sometimes it is necessary to kill someone Garfield. But that doesn't make you a villain unless it is your first choice." Rita had told him one day after Mento's lesson, the young changeling looking down._

" _But killing is bad." He responded, pulling a piece of grass from the ground and rolling it between gloved fingers._

" _No, it isn't. People will decide who you are, hero or villain, no matter if you kill or not. Think about Batman and how everyone is scared of him despite knowing he doesn't kill. We're heroes. And we stop bad guys from ever hurting innocents ever again."_

He smiled bittersweetly as he recalled Rita, the memory of the kind woman that had almost been a mother to him tainted by what the Brain had done to the Doom Patrol. His first real family after his parents died were murdered.

But she was right. The Titans were sticklers for 'thou shalt not kill', and they were in the Tower not saving anyone. He had killed one person already, and he had saved plenty of lives at the Park. If he hadn't Consumed Commander Walter, who knows how many would have died.

Hearing a cry for help from the East part of town, designated the 'Yellow Zone' by BlackWatch, he focused his biomass and leaped. He was doing the right thing, no matter what the Titans thought.

Starfire felt sick. She had seen the Infected outside, and now she had evidence that Beast Boy had become one through and through, absorbing those monsters and retreating from BlackWatch.

A small part of her admired the changeling and how he was willing to stick to what he thought was right despite them shunning him. It reminded her of her people, always willing to do what must be done no matter what the other races thought of them.

But another part, the one that she fought to keep in control since she had met her friends, was horribly upset that he had left them and decided to fight himself.

She missed his horrible jokes, his forcing himself to eat her cooking (She could tell that he didn't like it, but she greatly appreciated the effort he put forward), and how he always tried to involve everyone with his misadventures.

Had she done the right thing siding with Boyfriend Robin?

Raven was incensed. Robin didn't seem to see the issue with the ultimatum he had pushed onto Beast Boy, or how it hardly made sense.

She remembered the Beast Incident, and how Robin had outright threatened Beast Boy with jail because of an assumption, when really Adonis was to blame. She had seen the footage, there was no way to mistake he had been protective of her.

But that didn't matter. Right now Beast Boy was out doing what must be done to save their city, and she was inside the Tower, letting the automated defenses deal with any Infected that came close.

Unlike the other Titans, she knew that killing may be necessary to save the lives of innocents. That may have been her demonic heritage speaking to her, or it was just that she saw things in shades of grey rather than black and white like heroes were wont to do.

 _Hold on Beast Boy._ She thought, looking out her unusually opened window to see Jump City burning. _If any of us can do it, you can._

Cyborg felt betrayed. He had hoped Beast Boy would see reason and surrender to BlackWatch, but now he realized the changeling would fight tooth and nail to stop this Mercer guy, even if it meant becoming a villain.

He hated turning his back on BB, but it was easier to do this and hope that his best friend survived this and made himself scarce from Jump, or the remaining four Titans would have to hunt him down.

But Rob knew what he was doing, and Cyborg would follow him, even if he didn't like the vibes he got from this whole thing.

This was the right thing, he knew it, he just regretted that it meant BB got the short end of the stick yet again.

Robin sighed and rubbed his eyes through his domino mask. Ever since Gentek bought out STAR, things had gone horribly wrong. The files on the Titans have been hacked, BlackWatch had taken over their city and isolated them to their island, and their was a goddamn terrorist out there using a bio-weapon to create a zombie apocalypse.

As if that wasn't bad enough, one of his teammates was becoming a villain. One that seemed to be growing stronger every minute he was out there, killing people and absorbing their strengths.

Gentek and BlackWatch knew what they were doing, they helped stop the first outbreak in New York after all. He finished his report to Gotham and sent it off, rubbing the bags beneath his eyes as he opened up two new files in the villain database: Alex Mercer and Beast Boy AKA Garfield Mark Logan.

As much as it pained him, he knew it was the right thing to do. Batman hadn't trained a fool.

Tara sat at the desk in her hotel room, an unopened textbook showing she had yet to work on any of her homework, despite it laying there for over an hour. She was worried about Beast Boy, playing with the communicator she had been given for the second time.

He had said he can't rely on the Titans, and she saw what went down at the park. Whatever had been done to him he had become way more powerful, enough to take on three quadruped monsters at once, but he was still alone. And that was something she couldn't let happen.

She looked to the closet, her blue eyes conflicted as she finally rose from her seat, placing the communicator down and opening it, revealing something she hadn't thought about in over a year: cargo shorts, a black shirt with a yellow T including a yellow circle surrounding it, oversized gloves, blue goggles, and a pair of combat boots.

She had done the right thing, but now it was time for something else to be right.

Jinx realized the city was going to shit, it didn't take a genius. Zombie things running through the streets, a black ops organization running the place, gangs picking on the vulnerable populace, and the only Titan who wasn't locked in their Tower letting this happen was Beast Boy, and judging by the footage she had seen, he wasn't even himself anymore.

"He needs help." She realized, making Gizmo look at her with a raised eyebrow, tinkering with yet another of his machines.

"What do ya mean Jinx?" The toddler-like mechanic asked, raising up his goggles to focus on the hex witch.

Ever since the whole mess with the Brotherhood of Evil and Jinx joining the side of good, things have been tense between the ex Hive-Five. They were no longer villains, and Jinx herself was an Honorary Titan, but they were more neutral at this point. The Titans no longer hunted them and they didn't commit any crimes, but they didn't stop anything from happening.

"Beast Boy. He's the only one trying to do anything in Jump, the others are just staying in Titan's Tower letting us burn."

Gizmo sighed. Ever since Kid Flash, Jinx had grown a conscious, even if she was fine being passive for a while, she would occasionally want to go out and do the right thing. Mammoth would on occasion want to go out and rob a bank again, and Billy Numerous was with him on that. Kyd Wykkyd and Gizmo himself were more neutral, and would talk the other three out of fighting for either side.

"Jinx, even if we wanted to help, which I'm on the fence about, why would he accept our help? If he's not working with his friends maybe he's gone rogue or solo. He may even attack us if we show ourselves." Gizmo tried to be the voice of reason, having matured some since they stopped being criminals. One of only a few things that had changed, he realized, as Mammoth and Billy argued about whose turn it was on the TV.

"True, but look at what's going on out there. Zombies, black ops, nothing is right out there, and the idiot is taking on everything by himself. I can't just sit by anymore Gizmo. I have to help him." Her purple slitted eyes were shining with determination, and the short technician could tell he wouldn't dissuade her.

"Fine. Go ahead and help the genius so he doesn't get killed. I'll stay here with Kyd and make sure Mammoth and Billy don't cause you two anymore trouble than you already will have." The hex sorceress smiled at Gizmo and nodded in acceptance, grabbing her Titans communicator and heading out of their safehouse.

It was time to do the right thing yet again.

She knew how the thing thought. When Gentek moved to Jump City, she hacked as many files from the city as she could, eventually digging up the files from the Teen Titans database. Her eyes flitted over each member of the team, as well as the villains, trying to find the person ZEUS would choose for his 'game'. She looked over them all, all their powers, their psych profiles, everything she could find and downloading it all to her hard drive before she was locked out of the system.

Robin, the leader, was human, no matter if he trained under the Batman. ZEUS wouldn't have any interest in putting him in the game just yet.

Cyborg was mostly synthetic, his body mainly inorganic, and there wasn't enough of him for BlackLight to spread naturally.

Starfire was an alien, and the virus was bound to impact her differently than anyone else. But that could cost him a huge amount of powers if he didn't test it first, and he wouldn't risk losing all that power.

Same with Raven, except the second female Titan was an isolationist, and may not breed destruction like ZEUS desired.

But she zoomed in on the last one, finding just who BlackLight would infect. ZEUS wouldn't be able to resist the idea of someone who can already shapeshift learning a whole new way to turn his body into a weapon. Breaking a pacifist, and forcing a vegan to Consume people. It was cruel, but that was who he had become.

She had to find a way to contact and help Beast Boy, but first she had to get into contact with him somehow.

It was time to do the right thing and put down the monster that had once been Alex.

 **Hey everyone, welcome to Perspective Jump. It offers a brief glimpse into the heads of some important characters, and shows the beginning of what will be a three front war, with BlackWatch, BB, and Mercer as the heads. Hope you all enjoy!**


	5. When Greeks Attack

Chapter 5: When Greeks Attack

Beast Boy felt proud of himself as he knocked out the last gang member trying to hustle money out of the terrified populace. It was surprisingly difficult limiting his strength so he didn't cause permanent damage or kill any of them, but he felt it for the best he didn't kill everyone. It was the only way he wouldn't be completely hated by society.

Speaking of completely hated by society, he heard loud shouts of 'pervert' coming from across the block. Making sure to secure the criminals by tying their shoelaces together (just to be safe), he used his enhanced strength to leap onto a roof and headed towards the source of the screams.

"Come on ladies, you know you love Adonis!" An arrogant voice shouted, flexing mechanic muscles in a massive red mech suit. Beast Boy instantly regretted his promise not to kill anyone that wasn't Infected or BlackWatch. If anyone deserved it, it was Adonis.

The misogynistic wimp had been the cause of the first true divide between himself and the Titans when he had released a chemical in a research lab, which had infected the two of them. He had become ruled by his instincts, hostile, carnivorous, and eventually becoming a Beast. Adonis had become one as well, attacking him in Titan's Tower after he had argued with his team. Raven came to investigate, and he grabbed her and took off into the city with Beast Boy giving chase.

The Titans had followed the path of destruction, eventually finding a green Beast with Raven in its teeth. Once knocked out, it reverted into Beast Boy. He regained consciousness and discovered that he had been chained down by the other Titans and was blamed for the entire situation, which he couldn't remember.

Robin threatened him with prison, and the stress of that combined with his worry for Raven and guilt for apparently having done enough damage to put her in a healing trance caused him to go Beast again. He sniffed Raven for a moment, then leaped out of the medbay. Robin and Cyborg pursued him, eventually finding a clash of epic proportions between a Green and Gray Beast.

They finally put things together, but things had been tense between Beast Boy and Robin ever since, coming to a head just recently when he realized that the newly powerful changeling wanted to kill Alex Mercer.

"You know dude, I could have sworn you had reached rock bottom last time we fought. Didn't know you could get even more pathetic." He quipped as he jumped from the building, cracking the pavement as he landed, smirking at the wannabe muscleman as he stood to his full height, which was much more impressive than the last time they faced off, now about 5'8".

"You think just because you changed your outfit means you can challenge Adonis?" He boasted in response, slamming one metal fist into his open chrome palm. "So where's your goth friend? Adonis loves them feisty." Beast Boy could feel his rage building, both from the instincts that no longer fought to the surface and from Walter, the sociopath he had absorbed. No one talked like that about Raven and got away with it...

"You know Adonis, I am _this_ close to ripping one of those fake limbs off and beating you to kingdom come with it, but lucky for you, I have respect for people, even freaks." He could have sworn he heard a chuckle at that from a civilian or something, but he ignored it as he circled around the mechanized villain as if it were a Wild West throwdown at high noon.

"Explains why you walk around looking like that. Adonis feels ashamed just looking at you." Hearing the changeling growl, the third person speaking jerk smirked. "But you must be doing something right, the goth chick must be pitying you, and that's why she's willing to be seen in public with such a weirdo."

"Or maybe I'll rip you out of that tinfoil costume Mommy made for you. I think roughing you up may teach you some manners for once." He shifted his hands into the huge double edged claws, hearing the gasps of civilians and Adonis.

"W-what are you? I uh… I mean, Adonis isn't scared of you wimp! Bring it on!" He stammered, panic in his eyes as he fell back a step, only to decide to save face and grin cockily, offering the changeling a 'come on' gesture. Instead of responding to that in the traditional way, Beast Boy raised one clawed hand and gave Adonis the one fingered salute.

This caused the dim witted but tech savvy villain to let out a roar and charge the Infected anti-hero as if he were a grey skinned villain from a whole different universe.

The green changeling ducked out of the way of Adonis at the perfect time, aiming his sharp claws _just_ right so they sliced the majority of the armor off his legs, but so that Adonis wouldn't receive more than the sensation of cold organic steel on his skin.

He wasn't above using scare tactics to psych out his enemies.

The armored legs of Adonis' suit fell to pieces, and the weakling fell down with the weight of the armor now only supported by legs that made Beast Boy look like Cyborg. As if that wasn't pathetic enough, the guy started blubbering like a toddler.

"Dude, I know that thing must be heavy, but come on. I'll help you out of it and into jail if you really want." He crouched down and shifted his claws back into hands.

"I didn't mean anything by it man! BlackWatch made me do it! They didn't tell me you've become some kind of freak!" Adonis cried, and Beast Boy grabbed him by the suit's collar and lifted him up with ease, surprising the villain even more than before.

"BlackWatch? What do they have to do with this?" He felt compelled to Consume this wimp, learn what he knew the easy way, but he had made a promise and he wouldn't kill the guy.

"Hey asshat! Ready to pick on someone your own size?" A deep voice asked as the ground shakes. Beast Boy turned around and set Adonis back down, still trapped in his armor. This was a big one…

He stood head and shoulders over normal BlackWatch soldiers, and the suit he wore over his overly muscled frame was glowing a strange blue. This dude gave him a weird vibe, but he was BlackWatch after all, so anything was fair game.

"Depends, you heading out to buy some Healthy Choice, or should I just help you trim off those pounds?" He quipped, turning his hands back into wicked claws.

"Oh, a smartass huh? It's gonna feel oh so good fucking up your day!" He pounded his fist into an open palm like Adonis had done earlier, but it was much more intimidating now, for obvious reasons.

"What's with you BlackWatch dudes? Is cursing the only vaguely insulting thing you can do?" Beast Boy called back, tearing up pavement as he sprinted towards the massive soldier. Unlike what Adonis had done, he did a flip over the BlackWatch trooper and struck at his back. He did damage to the suit, but the guy inside barely flinched, he was made of sterner stuff than even the Infected.

"You think those letter openers of yours can do something to me? Yeah right!" He reached over his shoulder to grab the changeling, throwing him across the street into a building.

Beast Boy pulled himself out of the crater with nary a scratch on him, grinning. This guy was stronger than the Berserkers he had fought in the park the other day!

"Finally, someone I can go all out against!" He grinned and extended his claws, pouncing at his opponent. He barely avoided a haymaker to the face, rolling to the side and kicking up sparks as his weaponized fingers dug into the ground, turning him so he continued facing his enemy.

"So you've been holding back? Show me what you've got you bitch ass Infected." The super soldier taunted, standing tall and glaring at him through the mask. Beast Boy grew a tick mark at that. He wasn't one of Mercer's puppets!

He pounced again before he began to spin in midair, extending tendrils from his body so that he was a rotating spike of pure destruction flying straight towards the BlackWatch soldier.

"You think that'll stop me?" He laughed, a deep synthetic baritone, holding his hands out to catch the changeling in his tracks.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Blood splashed out, and a loud cough was heard. It became a fit as tendrils of biomass tore through the chest of the super soldier, absorbing him. The lifeless husk fell into the changeling, and as his claws changed back he clutched his head as memories flashed in that didn't belong to him or Walter.

" _So Private, are you sure about signing on for the Orion Project? You'll be facing down Chimera himself. And you'd be a Phase One, the guys at the stadium haven't finished up Phase Two yet."_

" _That fucker has had one too many free passes. We need to hit him where it hurts, so sign me the hell up so I can take him down."_

The vision passed and Beast Boy focused on isolating the memories that belonged to Private Harding, locking them away as best he could like he had Commander Walter's.

The stadium… Whatever this Orion guy had been, there was an upgraded version being created at the baseball stadium. He felt an eagerness to fight that wasn't entirely his own, but he took off to the stadium atop rooftops, dropping into an alley and becoming Walter.

Newly disguised as a member of BlackWatch, he approached the testing site, what had been the home base entrance to the stadium was now almost entirely sealed off, with what looked to be a hand scanner.

He placed his hand into the biometric detection device, and it recognized him as Commander Walter, opening the gate and allowing him access. Walking in he began looking around for the Orion soldier, until his eyes widened and he grew a smirk behind his mask when he saw a cage like the one that had held the Berserkers. He made his way towards it and, making sure that he wasn't being watched, used the hand scanner to open it.

He made himself scarce as the Berserker exited the cage, hiding out of its view as it let out a roar, pouncing at a poor fool in a Hazmat suit.

"Shit, the Berserker is uncaged! I repeat, the Berserker is uncaged!" One BlackWatch soldier shouted before he opened fire on the creature. Several more torrents of gunfire joined his, but the Infected didn't do anything to show it was in pain.

"Okay, guess it's my turn!" Beast Boy blinked Walter's eyes as he heard his voice, and another Orion appeared, this one even taller and more muscular, and with green tubing rather than the blue the previous one had.

"Just as long as your combat skills are better than that voice!" One BlackWatch soldier shouted at the Orion, making Beast Boy's eyes narrow. His voice wasn't nearly as grating as it had been! He breathed out and controlled his temper, watching and hoping that the Berserker he had released would weaken the Orion Project subject enough for him to finish him off.

To his surprise the Phase 2 was incredibly strong, powerful enough to tank a hit from the Infected and strike back with a haymaker that knocked it clear into a wall. Less surprising was that the Berserker shook it off and grabbed the nearest BlackWatch soldier, taking a bite out of him and apparently healing itself, it charged at Orion once again, and Beast Boy slipped around the fight, trying to think.

This guy was bigger and stronger than even the first super soldier, and the changeling needed an edge to take him on. He could try and face off with him, but if he got hurt during the fight he'd have to hide. Consuming people paralyzed him until the memory flash faded, so he would have to rely on his natural regeneration.

But then his eyes locked on the Berserker that was clashing with the Orion, and he realized that he did have a plan. Consuming Infected didn't hit him with memories, so he could heal from it mid battle, and it could be the perfect power boost to increase his strength enough to finish off the BlackWatch, and it would be even better if he could find more Berserkers that were locked up around the base, it would work out even better. They would wipe out support, help him recharge and get stronger during the fight, and weaken his opponent.

The only issue being that the Berserkers would attack him too, and he would have to change out of his disguise before he could Consume anything so that BlackWatch didn't discover his incredibly useful ability to shapeshift.

It would be difficult, but with luck he'd make it through and hopefully get a new target for his fight against BlackWatch. He was lucky that they had tried setting a trap with Adonis, he had little to no information to go on, and he didn't really like the idea of tapping into the memories of Harding or Walter in case their emotions or personalities began to bleed through.

He had enough problems without becoming a sociopath.

Making sure that everyone was distracted by the fight between the Berserker and Orion 2, he used the biometric scanner on two more cages and yet again he made a tactical retreat, hiding as two bestial roars joined the first and the slaughter became more stacked on the Infected side.

"Time to take advantage of chaos." He shifted back to normal and shaped the biomass of his arms into his claws for the third time today. Then he ran out and began ramming through surprised BlackWatch soldiers, sending them flying as he approached the all out brawl which showed that the first Berserker was barely standing, and the other two were ganging up on Orion.

"Tango Primary is in the base! I repeat, Beast Boy is attacking! Screw the Berserkers, deal with him!" A shout rang out across the base as the black ops organization mercs opened fire at him with assault rifles. Fortunately he still appeared to be bulletproof, but that didn't stop the rockets that some of them were firing.

He did his best to avoid the flying missiles, jumping into the frenzy by slashing at the Orion's back. Despite how he had shown no antagonistic presence against the Infected, they all howled as a new powerful opponent entered the field, one breaking off from the frontal attack to Orion to assault him.

"Fuck!" The super soldier cursed in Beast Boy's voice, giving him a tick mark as he evaded a lunge from a Berserker as the Orion turned to face him.

"Stop using my voice for cursing lard-breath!" He growled, kicking the BlackWatch soldier and using the momentum to claw through one of the three Berserkers, releasing a few tendrils to Consume it before it passed away. Just like every time before, he felt even more power flood into him, his claws sharpening and his muscles growing more powerful.

"I'll do whatever the hell I want shit stain!" Orion returned the tit-for-tat, grabbing a Berserker by the throat. The Infected struggled against the grip, but the soldier crushed its windpipe as he telegraphed a throw. Beast Boy smirked, that was too easy to stop.

He lowered himself to the ground and pounced at the creature as it was flung. He met it halfway between where he jumped and where Orion was, slicing off its head and using its broad back as a springboard and flinging himself once more towards the more powerful opponent, a single tendril from the small of his back absorbing strength from the monster.

"Holy shit, what the hell is he!?" One normal BlackWatch soldier shouted in surprise as the tendril retracted back into him, and Beast Boy couldn't hold back a fanged grin that oozed mischievous as he landed in front of the Orion, who had bashed in the head of the final Berserker, and he pointed one claw at the BlackWatch super soldier.

"You and me dude. Best Beast Boy standing wins." He turned his claws into fists and raised them in a rough loose stance, reminiscent of the one Robin had once tried teaching him.

"You've got balls kid." He laughed. He was exhausted and injured, but still arrogant. "Cease your fire, you aren't doing shit to him anyway. Save your ammo." After he said that, the steady staccato of gunfire that Beast Boy had been hearing since he revealed himself slowed to a stop.

Beast Boy made a 'come on' gesture with one hand, and the Phase 2 began charging. Slowly at first, but soon he had picked up enough speed he was like a juggernaut, raising a fist against the changeling.

He leaped straight up, swinging his right leg back and kicking his opponent in the head and knocking him onto his back. Seizing the opportunity Beast Boy landed on the fallen soldier's chest, shifting his hands into claws and plunging them into his ribs. As the green tendrils plunged into the Orion he began absorbing him. He felt much more power than anything else he had Consumed. In fact… Too much power.

He fell to his knees, coughing as the manipulated DNA that had been his before he began evolving flowed through his veins.

"What… What did you guys do to my blood?" He asked, feeling a strange heat across his skin as dozens of BlackWatch soldiers and even Orion's faced him.

His body wanted to move on its own once again, and considering it hadn't yet done him wrong, he stomped the ground and flung every one of his opponents into the air. Extending his arms in what seemed to be slow motion, suddenly a devastating amount of green tendrils came from him, at least one plunging into each enemy.

The tendrils returned to his body, and he stood back up, wondering what exactly he had just done. He had wiped out this entire testing facility, and it wasn't even too difficult.

Unfortunately, he didn't have any clues as to what to do next, so he was lost for now.

Adonis slipped into his hideout, muttering under his breath. He had managed to slip out of his armor and evade the military, and now he had to rebuild his mech suit, much stronger this time so Beast Boy couldn't tear it apart like he had.

As he walked into the 'living area' of his hideout (An old warehouse at the docks in the 'Green Zone', or North part of the city), he leaped backwards when he saw the hooded stranger reclining on his couch.

"Ah, Adam Hercule, yes?" He asked in an extremely cold voice that made the villain shudder.

"The name's Adonis punk. How did you get in here?" He asked, trying to be confident without the suit was hard, but he was arrogant enough to get the job done.

"My, you're very prideful for a mere mortal." The stranger stood up and turned to face Adonis, the red eyes making him wince, but not nearly as much as the claws that his hands turned into.

"Y-you're like that changeling!" He whimpered, which made the stranger laugh coldly.

"More accurate to say that he is like me." He looked at Adonis with odd familiarity, before he smirked. "My name is Alex Mercer, and I have an offer for you that you really shouldn't refuse if you value your life."


	6. A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 1

Chapter 6: A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 1

Beast Boy looked out over Jump City, furrowing his brow. He needed a clue. Something, anything, to go on. He refused to poke through any memories of the people he'd Consumed, in part to respect the dead and their privacy, and to make sure he didn't become them.

He sighed and rubbed at his temples, closing his eyes and trying to think. He could just destroy a BlackWatch base again, but he wanted to actually do something, not just cause violence…

Hearing the communicator that Commander Walter had when he was Consumed go off, Beast Boy shifted into the aforementioned BlackWatch soldier and answered it.

"This is Walter."

" _Commander, we have a lead on one Dana Mercer. She isn't here in Jump, but she does have a contact that is sending her info that is classified, on ZEUS, Chimera, and BlackWatch. I'll send you the coordinates, make sure he or she pays full price for that information."_ The voice ordered, BB using a bit of Walter's memory to recognize it as Colonel Richards.

"Yes sir. I'll get right on it." Inside he was jumping for joy. Someone with intel on BlackWatch AND Mercer? It was perfect! Kind of odd that a relative of Mercer's was rogue and not working with him, but whatever.

He followed the coordinates given, shifting back to his base form along the way, and came across what looked to be a parking lot, with a pile of sick pink biomass torn through the asphalt.

Confused, he went to investigate, feeling a strange pulsing in his head as he approached the pustule. Crouching low to investigate it, he realized that he could _feel_ a ton of Infected down there. Shifting his hands to claws he ripped open the Infected sack, revealing a hole that tunneled deep beneath Jump City.

"This is gonna be gross…" He shifted back into Walter, more for the benefit of the gas mask than the disguising himself as he jumped into the cesspool.

His head was ringing with all the nearby Infected as he landed, looking around what had been Jump City's sewer and noting with shock and disgust that it had become a huge room, every bit of concrete and metal coated with biomass and tendrils.

He didn't see anyone, so he activated his communicator.

"Colonel, it's Walter. I don't see anyone but Infected. Did you get me the wrong navpoint?" He asked curiously, his instincts now picking up something other than the hum of Infected that were hoarding below him. They weren't just people and Berserkers, there were also odd spots on the walls and floors that spit out more and more of the BlackLight creatures, almost like cloning.

" _You know, you're actually quite foolish Beast Boy."_ The cold and smug voice of Alex Mercer responded to him, and that made a pit in his stomach drop. " _I figured out the minute that Commander Walter used his credentials to get into Orion Phase 2, and then you showed up very soon after. Now, I want to see how strong you really are, so I showed you where one of my Lairs is. You'll be fighting some friends of mine, and either you'll become even stronger, or you'll die. Have fun."_ The communicator clicked off, and Beast Boy crushed it as the hum got even louder and the earth began to shake. Something was coming, and it was big…

What looked to be a massive red tendril burst from the ground, and it opened its spike to reveal 'teeth' before it shot a smaller tendril at him.

He barely rolled out of the way, shifting back to normal and forming his claws, just in time to leap above another tendril, only for a Berserker to launch itself at him and tackle him to the ground.

"Why you little…" He curled his double-edged claws into a fist, slamming it into the BlackLight creatures face with a sickeningly satisfying squelch as it flew into the new creature, which ate it and let out a shriek. As if that wasn't weird enough, there was a crash by where he had come in, meaning someone else was in here. "Stay back whoever you are!" He shouted, his conscience shining out as he grabbed one of the creature's spat tendrils and sliced it off. He didn't want to be responsible for a civilian getting hurt, killed, or Infected.

"Beast Boy!" Tara shouted as she ran into the fray, using her Geokinesis to create a small earth platform for her to stand on so she wasn't mauled as she took in the chaos.

"Tara? What're you doing here?" He asked as he ducked below another Berserker, stabbing his claws into it and swinging it around so it ate dirt, before gaping as he saw Tara in her old costume.

"Felt some vibrations in the earth and figured it was you! And the name's Terra!" Her eyes glowed a bright gold as she summoned more terrafirma from beneath them, coating herself in it as if it were armor, her fists looking almost like clubs.

"That's great to hear… I've got the big one, don't let any of them hurt you!" He ran up to the massive creature, running in a clockwise style with one of his clawed hands slashing the BlackLight monster as Terra jumped down to join the party, slamming her fists into the ground and creating a spike field that sent many an Infected flying.

The large monster let out a massive shriek as he began slashing at it with reckless abandon, tendrils coming out of him to Consume the new creature. He absorbed quite a bit of biomass, and soon his hands began to feel heavy, a new type of biomass concentration adapting to him before he looked down and noticed that this new form had three strange fingers on each hand. Taking a wild guess he cocked back his hand before aiming at a Berserker that was charging Terra, who was wrecking shit with her hammerfists, and threw a punch.

A glob of biomass attached itself to the Berserker and a web of tendrils flew off it, grabbing several Infected and even chunks from the wall before slamming them all into the unfortunate Infected, nothing left of it or what had been forced into it but a bloodstain.

"How you holding up Terra?" He asked as he used his new Tendrils to clear a bunch of other BlackLights, noticing how great they were for crowd control.

"So far so good, these things are easier than Slade Bots to stop!" He had to laugh as she shouted a retort, realizing that she was using melee rather than the ranged attempts she had made with the Titans. It was surprisingly effective, and much better at avoiding collateral damage (Not that there were civilians around, but she obviously didn't want the Lair caving in on them).

"You'll have to teach me that trick of yours, it looks useful!" He quipped, roundhouse kicking an Infected with enough force to snap steel in half and sending it flying into the far wall.

"Don't get your hopes up B, I don't think you have Geokinesis." She chuckled before she froze as she heard a voice that Beast Boy had already grown to hate.

"Interesting… The Traitor has come back, and you trust her so much already. What happened to 'Things Change Beast Boy'?" Alex Mercer asked, leaping down from the very same hole that both Beast Boy and Terra had leaped down moments earlier.

"How do you know about Terra?" He asked, a sick feeling in his gut. Had Alex Consumed one of the other Titans?

"Oh, that? Child's play Chimera. I got some of your memories in exchange for your gift, but none of your DNA just yet. Terra Markov, your friends the Titans… and the Beast." Beast Boy bristled at the last bit, but was thankful he didn't get any of the Towers access codes from his mind, not to mention that none of the other Titans had died yet.

"The Beast?" Terra inquired curiously, having not been a Titan during that whole mess. Beast Boy's ears drooped, and he idly kicked at the ground as he tried to find a way to explain.

"Oh he hasn't told you? Your boyfriend has a dark side." They both went to deny the fact they were dating, but it died in their throats as Mercer continued. "He and Adonis became monsters once, and they almost killed Raven. Now, in this corner, the untidy alliance of Beast Boy, the renegade Titan, and Terra, the Traitor that has switched sides so many times she doesn't even know what side she's on!. In the other, the Beast 2.0!" A huge bang and squelch came from one of the walls, and out came… something.

It looked like the Beast, but made up of black and red tendrils that pulsated and twisted. Even though it was standing still it looked like it was moving, and its teeth were extremely long and sticking out of its shifting mouth menacingly.

"Looks like Adonis doesn't need that mech suit anymore to put up a fight. Don't dissapoint me Beast Boy, Traitor." Alex walked off, waving a hand lazily behind him before leaping out of the Lair, leaving Beast Boy, Terra, and the Beast to look between each other.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this!?" She asked as the Beast finally struck, using her Geokinesis to pull herself out of the way of a clawed strike, the Beast's tendril like arm retracting back into itself.

"Is now really the right time?!" He shouted back at the annoyed ex Titan, ducking beneath yet another stretchy armed strike from the Infected.

"Fair point, but I'll be asking later." She shrugged before she slugged an attempted blow with her hammerfist, causing the oddly rubbery Beast's arm to go flying across the Lair, rebounding back and impacting the Beast with enough force to make a loud squelch and growl.

Beast Boy jumped into the fray, using a tendril to pull himself closer as he shifted his free hand into a claw, slicing at the Beast's face. The following sound was incredibly gross, but it was offset by the massive roar of pain that Adonis let out, its constantly shifting face now scarred.

"Slice and dice Terra! He's weak to it!" Instead of manipulating her rock fists into stone claws, she merely began slamming them into the ground, causing the wickedly sharp spikes from before to flood towards Adonis in a massive wave, tearing at his feet before he leaped away, at least slightly weakened by the onslaught he was receiving.

He let out a massive roar as Beast Boy shifted his other hand into another claw, engaging in a close combat brawl with Adonis. Duck. Slice. Leap. Dodge.

This dance of blades went on for a surprising time until Adonis got a lucky shot, slicing horizontally across Beast Boy's stomach with enough force to send him flying.

"Beast Boy!" Terra shouted, sprinting as fast as her rock armor allowed to check if he was alright.

It sure didn't look it.

There was enough crimson plasma coming from him that one would expect organs to be in the growing pool as well, but the only sign of anything that wasn't blood were chunks of black biomass. Now that he thought about it, he hadn't felt his heartbeat since he woke up…

Gritting his fangs, he managed to stand up, shifting a hand into Tendrils and using them to wrap the wound before he faced the Beast, who was now charging Terra.

"I… Don't think so... you bastard!" Unknown to the changeling his eyes began glowing a powerful green, similar to the red of Mercer's own eyes, but more wild and unrestrained as he ran on all fours towards the Beast, growling with a fervor that made Adonis stop his charge.

As he approached he focused as much biomass as he could into his fist, not to form tendrils or claws, or even to try a new ability, but to put as much power into this punch as possible.

The following blow was so powerful there was literally a shock wave from the sheer force of it, causing the unlucky Adonis to be flung against the wall with such force that the entire underground room they were in shook as if they were in the middle of an earthquake, BlackLight tendrils and dust falling from the ceiling.

The glow faded from Beast Boy's eyes, and he felt himself get incredibly exhausted all of a sudden, as if that punch had used up every last vestige of his strength.

He fell back to the floor, coughing up biomass and blood as he crawled towards the impact crater Adonis had left in the wall. He felt awful, and his vision was turning monochromatic. If he could just get to Adonis, he could Consume him, and that would hopefully kickstart his healing factor into saving him.

He crawled through the awful mess, congealed blood and body parts he had to clamber over as he slowly made his way across the room, trying to steady his breathing. It felt like with every second his destination got further and further away, but he had to keep going.

Jump City still needed him.

As if blessed by the gods, Adonis' barely conscious body was dropped in front of him, and he forced his tendrils to begin Consuming. Immediately his vision began to clear and return to color, and he saw a fanged Chesire smile that perfectly fit the catlike eyes and purple horns that appeared in his sight.

"Damn Green Bean, I'm impressed. I thought bad luck followed _me_."

 **Say hello to the first true story arc of this fanfic: A Trip Down Memory Lane! In this Beast Boy will make new allies, find more about his enemies, and grow even more powerful!**

 **Oh yeah, and don't think I forgot about Project Orion. It's not nearly done yet!**


	7. A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 2

Chapter 7: A Trip Down Memory Lane Part 2

"Jinx? What are you doing here?" He asked, groaning as he kept Consuming the Infected, feeling himself reach 200% before looking to the hex sorceress, pulling himself to his feet.

"I saw you on the news and figured you could use a hand. Looks like Blondie had the same idea." The ex-villain gestured to Terra, who had returned her rock armor to the ground, looking with suspicion at Jinx. "As for how I found you, I just tracked the biggest signal for bad luck in Jump City." She flashed him another Chesire grin, and he couldn't help but laugh.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Thanks Jinx, I seriously may have died there and then if you hadn't chucked Adonis down." The whole world had slowed, and he had felt himself draining. That was a terrifying sensation, but it was partially relieved by the massive amount of strength he had absorbed from the Infected.

"Yeah, speaking of, what happened to him? And what did you do to him?" She asked, only with mild interest instead of sick fascination that he had felt boring into him due to Terra.

"The same guy that Infected me did this to Adonis. We fought, and I barely proved myself stronger, absorbing him." He looked down, clenching his fists. "He… wasn't the first person I've Consumed, taking his talents, strengths, and memories… Maybe it makes me a monster that I don't feel guilty. One of those guys was a sociopath after all, and he could be impacting me way more than I had hoped…" He honestly didn't know. Things had been moving almost crazy fast ever since Mercer arrived, and he was scared that he hadn't yet thought about the people he'd killed. Sure, they were maniacs intent on killing him and who all seemed to be sociopathic or at the very least murderers, but he had also killed Adonis. Adonis. It only helped slightly that he was Infected and seemed unable to make his own decisions.

A pawn of Zeus' that he had struck down. It was intensely disturbing to think about life as chess, but it was the current best he could do to try and cope with his surprising neutrality on the matter.

"So?" He looked up to see Jinx looking at him impassively. Terra looked incredibly worried and even a bit sick, but the hex-witch seemed completely unimpressed.

"So? So I'm a sociopathic maniac with more power than almost anything in the city, and I can absorb the powers of anyone I want to make myself even stronger." Why was she so calm about this? She had to have figured out that he could kill and Consume them in an instant…

"But you aren't attacking civvies, and you haven't gone for my throat yet. Or Blondie's, for that matter. So long as you only eat the BlackWatch people and the Infected, you still count as a hero in my book Greenie." He couldn't help but smile at the simple way Jinx put things. They hadn't talked much before she fell off the grid, but she had congratulated him on dealing with the Brotherhood the way he did. Better than Robin at least, who had attempted to sweep it under the rug.

"That goes double for me Beast Boy." Terra sat down beside them, shooting a distrustful glare at Jinx.

"Thanks Terra, Jinx. Good to know I'm not alone here." He beamed at them before suddenly something in Terra's shorts rang. She pulled it out to reveal his Titans communicator, which she activated.

"Hello?" Unlike the usual events when the Titan com was used, there was a symbol of an owl holding a spear in one talon, the other with an olive branch.

" _Hello. Is Beast Boy there? I am Athena, and I wish to help him in any way I can."_ A voice, disguised and synthesized but obviously female and human, rang out.

"Athena? Goddess of wisdom?" The changeling asked as the surprised geomancer handed the communicator to him, only to be met by a sigh.

" _Sometimes I forget that she's real, at least according to Wonder Woman. No, Athena is more of a… handle than anything else. A way to keep anonymity while I help you deal with Alex. You interested?"_ The woman asked, and Beast Boy didn't hesitate.

"You have a deal Athena. If it makes any difference, I have Terra and Jinx helping me out." He shifted the screen to face the girls, just in case the screen was working in the opposite direction.

" _Tara? Huh, Karen mentioned you before things went to hell here. Alex killed her in cold blood, I'm sorry."_ Terra blinked in surprise, her face matching Beast Boy's slightly in tint, but nodded.

"That sounds like what I expected to happen… Dana?" She asked, making Jinx look between the two in confusion.

"Karen Parker was a member of Gentek, and Terra had her as a pen pal while she was playing civvie." The hex-witch nodded at the explanation. " _Wow, I need to do a better job hiding my identity… Anyway, I have a feeling I know what Alex will be doing. He will be gathering an army, not just of the Infected he can spawn, but of your villains. Think. Are there any that he may go after in particular?"_ She asked, making Beast Boy scratch his head in thought.

Slade? He had gone under after his previous meeting with Terra several years ago, but there were still sightings of him on occasion. Plus, he would be a powerful ally.

Control Freak? His remote maybe, but not the guy himself. That may count as a negative for physical aspects.

Doctor Light? Possibly, but again it was the debate of the tech over the man.

Adonis? Already Infected and then Consumed.

Brother Blood? He was being kept in the CADMUS base just outside Jump with a power inhibitor stopping him from escaping. Dude was powerful though, so Alex may take the risk to bust him out, not even counting whatever else was in those labs.

Cinderblock? He wasn't organic as far as Beast Boy was aware, so that may not work.

Overload? Same problem as Cinderblock.

Plasmus? That was a horrifying thought. He was kept in a nigh permanent cryo-sleep within STAR Labs, or Gentek as it was now.

Killer… Moth…

Oh. Shit.

"Can you get Killer Moth's address?" He asked with near panic in his tone, making the geomancer and the hex-witch nearby look at him questioningly.

" _Uh… Sure. He's in the Yellow designated zone of Jump, the Eastern section. I'll have your communicator get a signal located there."_ He nodded his acceptance, and the second the Titan-Com had the coordinates he waved for Terra and Jinx to follow him out of the Hive.

"What are you so worried about? That bumbling buffoon can't be of much help to that Mercer guy." Jinx asked, using her natural acrobatic skills and some bad luck to keep pace with the slowed down Beast Boy, while Terra controlled the earth to spring her through the air beside them.

"It's not him I'm worried about, other than the fact that he isn't that bad by villain standards, and he has his daughter with him. I'm more worried about his maggots." Realization hit his partners like a freight train, but they kept beside him, even increasing their pace slightly.

Killer Moth, a villain of Batman's who had followed Robin to Jump City. He was pretty pathetic, but had one thing going for him that would interest Mercer: The mutant maggots like Silkie. Killer Moth had shown that he could make these biological monstrosities (He found Silkie quite adorable, but he couldn't deny they were freaky) mutate into, well, killer moths. If Alex got his hands on the tech Killer Moth used, or the maggots themselves, he would have a whole new army at his fingertips, one he could manipulate to become incredibly deadly in a myriad of ways that spelt horror for the civilians of Jump City.

When they arrived, overlooking the signal location, they saw Killer Moth and his blonde daughter Kitten being threatened at gunpoint by a BlackWatch Commander, who had Kitten's spider headed boyfriend (His head was literally a full giant spider on top of a human body, he was one of the reasons BB had avoided attempting partial shapeshifting) Fang, who seemed to be glaring down at them.

Instead of seeing a suburban street with a simple crime occurring, Beast Boy saw a battlefield, and he would take full advantage of it.

When he had absorbed Adonis, his instincts grew even more intense, and what was more, he could feel the Beast again, along with the other instinct sects in his brain (Don't worry, I'll explain later).

Alpha, the leadership side he had unknowingly birthed during the fight against the Brotherhood of Evil, worked alongside the Beast as he came up with a game plan.

"Terra, you're on collateral. You need to protect Killer Moth and Kitten, as well as anyone else nearby. Jinx, do something to take care of Fang, tie his spider legs or something. I'll deal with the Commander." Something in his head resonated with the Commander. Something strangely new yet old. It felt like… Alex.

The duo nodded, and they sprung into action against a full on hostage situation.

Terra built a dome around the villains, protecting them from the fight that was possibly about to break out.

Jinx leaped down and released a wave of amethyst bad luck at the spiderman, who face (Carapace?) planted with his eight extra limbs tied together, curses and clicking escaping his… mouth.

Beast Boy took the chance to leap down and grab the Commander by the throat, holding the startled man up with a toothy grin.

"Say, could you be so _kind_ as to tell me just why you smell almost exactly like some of the Infected that I've met recently? I mean, humans shouldn't smell that... bad?" His emerald eyes widened when the Commander's hands became a huge set of claws, attached to his body by black and red biomass. "Oh, that explains it."

The BlackLight warrior kicked off of Beast Boy's chest, gouging deep treads in the ground as he halted his inertia, and the changeling could feel his bloodlust. Not as much to his surprise anymore, his blood boiled at the challenge of another powerful opponent, the chance to test himself and grow far stronger.

He would worry about the danger of this later, but first, he had an ass to kick.

His left hand formed his Tendrils, while his right formed Claws, and he kicked off the ground at the BlackLight with intent to tear.

The Evolved rolled to the side, roundhouse kicking the changeling into the air and sprinting at a wide eyed Jinx.

"No way bub!" BB shouted at the top of his lungs as he instinctively made his body far denser than before, aiming himself in a way that he knew would take out this idiot.

Face? Meet fist, at Mach freaking TWO!

Instead, the wrong face met a huge rock wall, crashing through it with a loud yelp.

"Terra! What the hell?!" He asked, rubbing his bruised face as it quickly healed, the Evolved looking at him in amusement, along with Jinx and Kitten from within the sphere.

"What were you thinking you idiot?! You need to hit him hard, but not hard enough to level the goddamn street!" She shouted, eyes glowing gold as she made the taller teen wilt slightly.

"Sorry, I wasn't thinking…" His blood cooled, no longer boiling with a need for battle, and that made him smile.

"You're right I- what are you smiling about?" In response he winked and used his Tendrils to pull himself at the Evolved, who was expecting a fight interrupting monologue instead of a punch to the face.

"Super anti-hero slash vigilante rule number one, collateral damage is a must avoid, except for a bad guy's face!" He crowed, using his thumb to aim as he cocked back his right arm, focusing on the location of his plummeting enemy and launching a single spiked tendril from his middle finger's knuckle at high velocity, intent to spear the Evolved.

But he was screwed over again as he missed, the Evolved _gliding_ out of the way, flipping him off with his claws.

"Oh screw this!" He gritted his teeth as he resisted the boiling of his blood, leaping high into the air and grabbing the man's leg, slicing his claws off and shooting out tendrils to Consume him, new memories and power flooding him as he fell faster and faster towards the ground.

" _I need you to do me a favor and find all the information you can on Killer Moth and his mutant maggots. If we can experiment, possibly clone or gift them with BlackLight, we may find ourselves yet another way to turn the tables in our favor…"_

Beast Boy blinked back to reality just in time to spread his arms and legs, slowing his descent and letting him land, not gracefully, but in a way that didn't cause the whole street to crumble.

"Well, I guess that was a thing… Are KM and Kitten alright?" He asked, lifting himself back to his feet and sweat dropping as he saw the wincing imprint of his face in the pavement.

"We're fine. Just what… was that?" Killer Moth seemed to forget that he was an enemy of Beast Boy's, and the changeling didn't really care himself one way or the other. Enemy or not, he wanted to stop all the bloodshed we could.

"Yeah, thanks Greenie… Where's Robbie-Poo?" The teenage blonde asked, making Beast Boy remember that she had a peculiar obsession with the Boy Wonder.

"He and the rest of the Titans are staying in the Tower until this all blows over, I'm this city's protector now, with the exception of these two." He gestured to Terra and Jinx, but was shocked when Kitten suddenly clung to his arm.

"My hero! Robin abandoned us, but you never would do that, would you Beastie?" She cooed, and the emerald eyed hero looked between Terra, Jinx, and KM, and they were all shocked as he was.

She had changed the subject of her Hero Worship FAST!

"Uh… We need to get you out of the city Moth, preferably with all your research and maggots." Even through the mask, he could tell there was a raised eyebrow on the villain. "Better you have them than a biological terrorist who's already a one man army." He nodded in acceptance of this and pulled on a candlestick near the entrance, which revealed his secret lab, allowing the group to walk down the spiral staircase.

Beast Boy was shocked at just how many maggots there were, hundreds at least! Killer Moth walked over to a supercomputer and began typing on it, starting a download to a flashdrive as he hit a button on his gauntlet, shrinking all his mutant maggots to actual maggot size as he began to gather them up, Beast Boy trying to help much to Kitten's annoyance, the blonde diva storming upstairs to pack her bags.

"Why was Fang with BlackWatch?" Beast Boy asked as they waited impatiently for the download to finish.

"He made a deal with that terrorist guy. He received some new powers, in return for being his lackey. My Kitten was heartbroken until you arrived." The way the villain said that made Beast Boy shudder, being reminded of when he held the city hostage so that Robin would take Kitten to her Junior Prom.

This guy didn't mess around when getting his daughter what she wanted.

"Uh… Happy to help?" He asked, unsure if that was the proper response to this situation, and the nod from KM made him sigh in relief.

"It's for the best that we get away from Jump City anyway. You said you're the only heroes out there, and its obvious that the Infected aren't the only ones that are holding the city hostage." Beast Boy nodded his agreement at the summary of the situation. BlackWatch, Infected, and apparently Mercer sleeper agents were seemingly everywhere.

"We'll try and get you out through the bridge. It'll be guarded without a doubt, but I can distract them while you sneak through. I just hope this doesn't force Mercer's hand…" He had to try and ignore the call in his blood for Mercer to face him. It almost felt like his Alpha side, but different.

Shunting that to the side when he heard Kitten come down the stairs, he nodded and checked the download, finally complete. It was time to enact a plan of action.

"Okay, here's what we'll do…"

Several hours later it was almost sundown, and it was time for Beast Boy to get Kitten and Killer Moth out of the city. They approached the blockade, wearing disguises of course, with confidence, being met with suspicion as the BlackWatch soldiers looked them over.

"Get the hell outta here, no one leaves the city!" He barked, holding his assault rifle up and making Beast Boy narrow his eyes, his senses going haywire.

Five BlackWatch members, all armed and armored, but their weapons had their safeties on. If he were to use his full speed, he could take out two before they knew what happened, one more before the safeties went off, and then another before the gunfire started, but that left one opponent and no way to cover his friends.

"Jinx, jam that last guy's rifle. Terra, I need you to protect Jinx, Kitten, and Killer Moth." The superheroines nodded and activated their powers as Beast Boy sped into action.

"What the-" The first BlackWatch member was thrown into the second by Beast Boy, and as the safeties on the rifles clicked off the changeling roundhouse kicked the third into the bridge's tower with enough force to leave a dent, and the fourth he punched in the stomach.

The only standing member tried to fire his weapon, but that course of action blew up in his face… literally, the gun bucked and smacked him in the face with enough force to knock him over.

"Run for it!" Beast Boy shouted, kicking the villain's into gear while they still had an opening.

Except there wasn't an opening, the BlackWatch soldiers were holding Kitten and KM by their throats, the other three beginning to surround the trio of heroes. Their eyes flashed red, but not like Alex's. This was something else entirely…

"Now now Beast Boy, you were barely at my level before my latest upgrade." The voice of Brother Blood rang out, the leader of BlackWatch shapeshifting into the nemesis of Cyborg, with a cold grin on his face.


End file.
